IN THIS EPISODE:

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” – Abraham Lincoln, 16^th President of the United States

“By Failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” – Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States

“Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning.” – Thomas Edison, Inventor & businessman

Even the creative genius Pablo Picasso knew that planning was key when he said:

“Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.”

So, with so many quotes by smart people to remind us of the importance of proper preparation and planning to avoid poor performance…WHY do most account plans simply NOT WORK?

Perhaps the answer is simple and it is because most account plans are just too complicated!

Do you ever feel frustrated at the lack of consistency in the way your teams create account plans? Perhaps some team members don’t even bother.

Would it make your life easier to have a straightforward system and process for planning so that you can keep your eye on what is going on and retain visibility of your most important customers?

In this episode, I share our KAMGuru approach with you in building a simple, easy to use and effective Key Account Plan. This short, stress-free plan will act as your guide, toolkit and roadmap to achieving success with your accounts.

KILLER QUESTION SEGMENT

In each episode we ask you, our listener, a killer question that is designed to get you reflecting on your business, your KAM Culture and where changes in thinking and behaviour could lead to increased customer success.

In this episode we ask the question earlier than usual in the podcast to kickstart our topic. The question is:

If one of your top account managers left the business today, what details would leave with them?

The answer will help us to start to nail down what a good Key Account Plan should look like.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THIS EPISODE:

I walk you through some key points around developing a simple KAM Plan that you should be implementing (right now!) in your business. By having a system of recording pertinent points outside of your lead sales person’s head – you are better at securing the lifetime of that top customer with your business.

Here are some of the key areas I talk about:

- The vulnerability that all organisations have

Which is that account managers hold the plans for your most important customers in the safest place for them, and the most dangerous place for you…in their heads.

- What’s on your ideal customer handover list?

I prompt you take out a pen and paper and work on this. Make a list of all the things that YOU would expect to be shared with you in a handover meeting if the account was to be passed on to you to look after going forward.

(i) The KAMGuru KAM Plan consists of three segments:

Intelligence: this section should give us the headlines, key facts, and the IMPORTANT details that will answer the fundamental question: What is the current situation on the account?
Intentions: How can you: (a) add more value to this Key Account; (b) improve and develop the business we do with this account; &/or (c) develop relationships between the two organisations?
Implementation: in short this is about who is going to do what and by when? (It’s the accountability section)

(ii) Plans are not just for times of disaster. A good KAM Plan should be a working tool that guides an account manager’s activity and gives visibility of the account to anyone that needs it.

(iii) KAM Activities. David suggests a range of activities that you may like to think about that will take the idea of the KAMplan and help convert it into a sustainable, profitable reality:

Monthly Quality Thinking Time (QTT) Sessions
Buddy system
Key Account Clinics
Team Review Meetings

Make sure you listen to this episode to grab all of David’s insights into each of the 3 segments of the KAMGuru KAM Plan structure as well as his tops for KAM activities.

THEN: kick start your implementation of a KAM Plan which is an easy win with a high impact value for the long term. Read below for a FREE template to get you going.

FREE rESOURCE FOR YOU: TEMPLATE KAM PLAN

For this episode’s listeners, we are sharing (for free) our KAMGuru KAM Plan structure, so you can get going NOW. You can download your copy (no sign-up required) by going to our show notes on our website here.

COMING UP...

In the next episode of KAMCAST, David will be talking to Alex Raymond, a specialist in the KAM software space, about how systems should support your success.

Alex is the co-founder and CEO of Kapta, a customer experience mapping company based in Boulder, Colorado (US). Kapta is purpose-built for organisations who want to establish, expand, or improve their Key Account Management function. Their technology removes the busy guesswork from client services, so you can focus on the work that matters: building strong relationships.

With an MBA from INSEAD and a bachelors degree in foreign affairs from Georgetown University, Alex is a smart man, with 20 years-experience in the customer experience software sector.